Method for mending holes in fabrics



Sept. 6, 1966 D. L. MAPSON METHOD FOR MENDING HOLES IN FABRICS Filed Dec. 1' 1962 .OO/VAA 0 A MAR/0N INVENTOR.

States This invention relates to the art of repairing textile fabrics and particularly to mending small holes in suiting fabrics such as are often caused by cigarette burns.

Heretofore such holes have been mended by a varietyof patching methods as Well as by re-weaving the fabric in the area where this has been destroyed. The latter method is quite expensive however but it is the only way to mend such holes discovered prior to this invention which practically restores the original appearance of the fabric in the area mended.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of and appartaus for mending small holes in textile fabrics which may be satisfactorily employed by a person without special skill in this art and at a relatively low cost, and which will practically restore the original appearance of the fabric where mended.

The manner of accomplishing the foregoing object as well as further objects and advantages will be made manifest in the following description taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which FIGS. 1 to 9 inclusive are diagrammatic fragmentary views (enlarged to a scale of about three inches equals one inch) of a garment having a hole in the fabric thereof which garment these views show being mended by the present invention.

Because of the magnified scale of these views, the entire garment may not be shown in any of them, and only a small area of the fabric of said garment, immediately adjacent and surrounding said hole is shown in each of this group of views. It is to be expressly understood however, notwithstanding the fact that only a small piece of fabric is shown in the drawings as being mended, that the mending of a hole in such a small piece of fabric is not the normal use to which the invention is put. Omission of the garment in its entirety from the views is merely to save drawing space and to permit magnification of the structural factors directly concerned in the practice of the invention and thus improve the illustration of said invention in the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a magnified view of a small area of the textile fabric of a garment (which fabric has a double pin-stripe pattern woven integrally therewith) and showing a hole such as might have been produced in said area of said fabric by a cigarette burn. This view also shows a dot dash circular line of the same diameter as the cutting edge of a cylindrical cutter of the apparatus of the invention when this cutter is superimposed on said fabric with the latter in unstretched condition as shown in FIG. 1 and approximately concentric with said hole.

FIG. 2 is a view similar to FIG. 1 showing said garment fabric stretched uniformly outwardly from the center of said hole and includes a circular dotted line which represents the elements of the fabric, which had been engaged by the cutting edge of said cutter with the latter positioned as shown in FIG. 1, after said elements have been shifted radially outwardly from the center of said hole by said stretching action.

FIG. 3 is a view similar to FIG. 2 showing said garment fabric still in radially stretched condition and illustrates said cutter superimposed upon said fabric in concentric relation with said hole.

FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic vertical sectional view taken on the line 44 of FIG. 3 and illustrates a step of the method of the invention in which a disc of material is atet cut from said garment fabric by pressing said cutter thereagainst and rotating the same, the material of which disc completely surrounds and contains said hole.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of the aforesaid garment fabric similar to FIG. 1 after said hole containing disc has been cut therefrom and after said garment fabric has been relieved of the radial stretching tension indicated by arrows in FIGS. 2, 3 and 4, and with said garment fabric superimposed upon a small sample piece of like fabric with the design patterns of said fabrics shown to be in matching relation by observations made through the circular opening made in said garment fabric in removing said disc therefrom.

FIG. 6 is a view similar to FIG. 4 showing the cutter employed in the aforementioned disc cutting operation inserted downwardly through and in guided relation with the circular opening formed in said cutting operation and with said garment fabric and said fabric sample superimposed as shown in FIG. 5, so that further downward extension of said cutter and rotation of the latter cuts an undamaged fabric disc from said fabric sample.

FIG. 7 is an exploded perspective view showing said garment fabric and said second fabric disc superimposed thereabove, and showing how the pattern appearing on said undamaged fabric disc matches perfectly with the pattern appearing on said garment fabric, and with a thermo-plastic patch positioned beneath and in overlapping relati-on with the area being mended in said garment fabric.

FIG. 8 is a diagrammatic elevational view showing the three elements illustrated in exploded relation in FIG. 7 brought together with said undamaged fabric disc inserted in the circular opening in said garment fabric, and said three elements inverted to bring said thermo-plastic patch in overlapping relation with and directly above the area being mended and with these assembled elements resting on an ironing board and with a hot iron being applied from above to said patch.

FIG. 9 is a view similar to FIG. 1 showing the same garment fabric after the method of the present invention has been performed as illustrated in the other views of the drawings to mend said fabric so as to eliminate the hole burned therein, while at the same time practically restore the original appearance of the fabric where this has been mended.

FIG. 10 is a diagrammatic view drawn to full scale of a preferred form of rotary cutter and a preferred form of the rotary sharpening stone, embodied in the apparatus of the present invention.

Reference hereinabove to the various views of FIGS. 1-9 inclusive as being on a magnified scale merely means that in the normal operation of the method of the invention, the dimensions of the various elements involved in the method are about one-third that shown in said views. The latter are thus uniformly enlarged views of a typical performance of the method. This does not mean of course that the method of the invention has any dimensional limitations as it may be employed in mending any size or shape of hole in a textile fabric.

To conserve space on the drawings the operation of the invention is shown as performed on a small square portion 10 of the fabric of a garment which immediately surrounds a hole 11 therein such as might be produced by a cigarette burn, whereas the method is normally employed upon the textile fabric in the whole garment for the purpose of mending the hole in said garment and restoring the original appearance of the fabric where it has been mended.

The garment fabric 10 is shown as having a double pin-stripe pattern 12. The hole 11 is normally about of an inch to of an inch in diameter and the method of the invention comprehends cutting out a piece of the fabric which is preferably in the form of a circular disc 13 which is about /8 in diameter and is concentric with and contains the hole 11. This cutting operation is preferably performed by the use of a rotary tubular cutter 14 which is internally beveled at 15 at its lower end to form an annular cutting edge 16 at the juncture of this bevel with the peripheral cylindrical surface of the cutter. An upper end portion 17 of the cutter 14 may be knurled to facilitate manipulation of the cutter in the fingers.

The cutting of disc 13 from the fabric 10 may be performed, as illustrated in FIG. 4 by placing the fabric 10 flat against the upper surface of a medium-hard rubber block 18, positioning the cutter 14 as shown in this view with the cutting edge 16 thereof concentric with the hole 11 and then bearing down upon the cutter and rotating the same so as to cut the disc 13 from the garment fabric 10 as shown in this view.

A preferable but optional step in the method of the invention is to precede the above described cutting step by an application of stretching tension in directions radiating from the center of the hole 11 as indicated by arrows 19 and maintaining this radial stretching of the fabric 10 at the time the disc cutting step above described takes place. The purpose of this stretching step will be made clear hereinafter.

A sample 25 of fabric just like the garment fabric 10 is required for the next step in the method and this may generally be procured from a seam inside the garment or from excess material turned up in the forming of a cuff or a sleeve thereon. In the performance of the method illustrated in the drawings, the fabric sample 25 is thus shown as having a double pin-stripe pattern 12 which is identical with the pin-stripe pattern 12 of the garment fabric 10.

The next step of the method of the invention is illus trated in FIG. 5 and comprises placing the fabric sample 25 flat against the upper face of the block 18 and then laying the garment fabric 10 over the fabric sample 25 so that the pattern 12 on the garment fabric 10 matches the pattern 12 on the fabric sample 25. As the garment fabric 10 is very much larger than the fabric sample 25 the latter is completely hidden from view excepting for the observation of the same which may be made through the circular opening 20 in the garment fabric 10. It is accordingly only by observation of the pattern 12 on the fabric sample through the opening 20 that the operator of the method is able to effect a proper matching of the patterns on said two fabrics.

With the garment 10 and fabric sample 25 thus held against the upper face of the rubber block 18 in matched relation, the cutter 14 is inserted downwardly through the circular opening 20 so as to be guided by this opening into contact with the fabric sample 25 so that continued downward and rotary movement of the cutter accomplishes the cutting of an undamaged fabric disc 26 from the fabric sample 25 which, when properly oriented with the opening 20 in garment fabric 10 and inserted into said opening, completely fills said opening and provides a continuation therethrough of the pattern of the garment fabric 10.

The next step of the method is to assemble the fabric disc 26 in the circular opening 20 of the garment fabric 10 as shown in exploded relationship in FIG. 7 with a thermo-plastic patch 27 pressed upwardly against the garment fabric 10 in overlapping relation with the opening 20 thereof. The garment fabric 10, fabric disc 26 and patch 27 thus assembled are then inverted and laid on an ironing table 28 and a hot iron 29 applied downwardly to the patch 27. This melts the thermo-plastic mending material with which the patch is impregnated so that this flows partially into the interstices of the adjacent portions of the garment fabric 10 and fabric disc 26 filling the circular opening 20.

The application of the hot iron is only momentary and it is then removed to allow the fluid sealing material of the patch to cool and congeal where this has flowed into the garment fabric 10 and fabric disc 26. The iron 29 is not applied to the patch 27 for a long enough period to cause the sealing material from the patch to flow entirely through the garment fabric 10 or the fabric disc 26. The sealing material does partially enter interstices of the garment fabric 10 and disc 26, however, far enough to tie down the lose ends of the yarn from which these two elements are woven where this yarn was cut by the two disc cutting operations of the method. The fraying out of such loose ends at the edge of the circular opening 20 in the garment fabric 10 or along the periphery of the disc 26 is thus permanently prevented. The matching of the pattern of the garment fabric 10 and the fabric disc 26 prior to uniting these two elements in the mending operation, and the complete filling of the opening 20 by the disc 26 hides all evidence of any disturbance of the area mended thereby.

Although not an essential step in the invention, the step of stretching the fabric 10 radially from the axis of the hole 11 therein as indicated by the arrows 19 in FIGS. 2, 3 and 4 prior to and during the cutting of the initial fabric disc 13 from the garment fabric 10, results in the circular opening 20 being slightly less in diameter than the cutting edge 16 of the cutter 14 when the stretching tension applied to the fabric 10 is relaxed following said disc cutting operation. Therefore, when the method is employed to include this stretching step, it is necessary to work the cutter 14 through the circular opening 20 in garment fabric 10 when preparing to cut the undamaged disc 26 from the fabric sample 25 as shown in FIG. 6.

The prestretching step also has the effect of placing the undamaged fabric disc 26 under slight compression when it is inserted in the circular opening 20 in garment fabric 10. The effect of this is to prevent any separation of the garment fabric 10 and the fabric disc 26 being evident when the garment fabric 10 is stretched after having been mended by the method of this invention.

FIG. 9 illustrates the garment fabric 10 as this appears after having been so mended and the outline of the fabric disc 26 which has been permanently sealed into and made a part of the garment fabric 10 in mending the latter is shown by a faint dotted line. This line, however, is not intended to illustrate any thing that appears on the fabric following the mending operation but merely outlines the hidden location of said disc. As a matter of fact, the nap of the garment fabric 10 and the nap of the fabric disc 26 merge along the circular border line between these elements so as to hide any evidence of the fabric 10 having been mended.

It is desired to stress the significance in the method of the invention of the step of providing the small sample 25 of fabric identical with the fabric of the garment 10 and then die-cutting the undamaged fabric disc 26 to be used in mending the garment, from the fabric sample 25.

Die cutters 14 of various diameters may be used in performing the method of the invention but the die cutter illustrated in the drawings is the one most commonly used and has a cutting edge 16 which is of an inch in diameter. When using a die cutter of this size, the fabric sample 25 should have a minimum dimension of A of an inch. It can be of irregular shape, and is not required to be a square fabric sample as formally represented in FIG. 5. The only limitations on size of the fabric sample 25 are that it should be large enough so as to provide within its borders material for the new fabric disc 26 wherein the elements 12' of the pattern on the disc will match with elements 12 of the pattern on the garment fabric 10, and the fabric sample 25 must be small enough so that it can be readily manipulated which is to say shifted laterally and rotated as by friction applied to said fabric sample by the rubber eraser of a pencil extended downwardly through the circular opening 20 in the garment fabric 10, so that the operator can bring the design pattern 12 on the fabric sample 25 into proper registry with the design pattern 12 on the garment fabric 10.

While the initial application of the fabric sample 25 to the reverse face of the garment fabric may be done by holding the sample 25 in one hand while holding the garment in the other hand, and these two fabrics then superimposed over the cutting block 18 as shown in FIG. 6, it is generally found necessary after the latter step has been performed to make a slight correction in the orientation of the pattern on the sample with the pattern on the garment by friction applied to the sample through an instrument extended downwardly through the opening 20 in the garment fabric.

Another factor which the method of the invention depends upon for its successful uniformity of operation is the maintenance of a razor-sharp cutting edge 16 on the rotary tubular die 14. The only way it has been found possible to do this is to sharpen this edge before each operation. The apparatus of the invention thus includes a fine grained, conical sharpening stone 30 (FIG. 10) having a knurled handle 31 formed concentrically therewith. In sharpening the cutting edge 16 of the tubular die 14 with the stone 30 the handle 31 is twirled between the thumb and forefinger While the stone 30 is applied lightly to the internal bevel 15 of the die 14. The conical angle of the stone 30 matches that of the bevel 15 so as to lie flush against the latter during the sharpening operation.

The importance of having the cutting edge 16 very sharp when performing the operations of cutting out fabric discs 13 and 26 is seen in the fact that failure of the die to cut any of the strands of yarn connecting one of these discs with the surrounding fabric will cause these strands to pull out from the surrounding fabric when an attempt is made to remove the disc therefrom and after this happens it is very difficult to complete the mending operation so as not to leave some evidence of the garment fabric 10 having been mended. The sharpening stone 30 is thus practically an essential element of the apparatus of the present invent-ion.

The claim is:

A method of mending a small hole in a fabric garment which comprises the steps of stretching said garment fabric uniformly radially from the center of said hole, applying a rotary cutter to said garment to cut a disc of fabric therefrom embracing the area in which said hole appears, providing an undamaged sample of the fabric of said garment, applying the same cutter to said fabric sample to cut an undamaged disc of fabric therefrom inserting said undamaged disc in the opening produced in said garment fabric by cutting said first disc therefrom, pressing a thermoplastic patch against the reverse face of said undamaged disc and in overlapping relation with said garment fabric, and applying heat to said patch to soften the same and cause it to tfiOW only partially through said fabric disc and the area of said garment fabric engaged thereby whereby solidification of said patch material causes the latter to unite said disc with said garment fabric and bind against unravel-ling the adjoining cut edges of said garment fabric and said fabric disc.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 941,047 11/1909 Shelton 15694 1,765,098 6/1930 Roozendaal l56---94 2,101,607 12/1937 Block l5694 2,116,008 5/1938 Block 156-94 2,135,926 1 1/1938 Vanlandingham 51-309 2,454,016 11/1948 Skoog l5698 2,458,032 l/l949 Simon et a1. 15698 2,5 62,5 87 7/ 1951 Swearingen 5 l-309 2,675,851 4/ 1954 Mutti l56513 3,021,249 2/ 1962 Skoog 156-293 3,075,573 1/1963 'PiaZze l56-513 IEARL M. BERG-ERT, Primary Examiner.

H. F. EPSTEIN, Assistant Examiner. 

